How can I reuse or recycle herbal tea bags like chamomile?

I know we’ve kinda covered this topic before – in the form of “real” tea bags – but I was thinking about chamomile ones the other day and wondered if there aren’t some special reuses for different herbal ones, instead of just winging them into the compost.

According to lore/half memories in my head this Monday morning, chamomile tea is good for bringing out blonde bits in hair: after you’ve enjoyed the tea, stew the bag/bags to get a couple of strong cups full of it, then lash it over your head. Wisdom (and by “wisdom”, I mean some internet forums I once read) differs on though whether it just cleans residues off blonde bits or (with the application of a bit of heat/sun) it actually lightens/re-colours the hair. Anyone know?

Any other less spurious re-uses for second/third/fourth soakings of chamomile?

And what about other herbal teas? I’ve always thought herbal teas smell better than they taste – anything to take advantage of that?

Once you have had your cup of tea you can then put the teabags back in water and use the resulting coloured water to make home made playdough or salt dough – it will give the dough a nice colour and save having to buy food colouring!

Okay-tea or coffee is nice for tinting paper. Lovely for making old pirate maps-you can wrinkle the paper up first for a very aged look.
And herbal tea that smells nice, but isn’t quite strong enough? Put one herbal tea bag with one black tea bag, brew together-strong, flavored black tea.
Last but not least-use the tea bags sewn up in bits of cloth for scented sachets to put in your dresser drawers. I suppose you could thoroughly dry out a used one in a warm oven and use that as well as just using up new ones, never tried it myself.

Tea from chamomile, even weak, is very good for watering flats of garden seedlings. It must be cooled down, of course, before application. The chamomile helps to control damping off fungus, which can kill the young plants.

One use I’ve found very helpful using chamomile tea bags. Ever had an eye stye? They’re pretty painful and swell up your eyelid. Sometimes, you can tell one coming on before it becomes very visible if you notice slight pain/discomfort in the eyelid when you blink or if there is slight redness. Anyway, one way of stopping it in its tracks or helping it go away faster is using camomile. You can make another cupful, dip in a cotton wool pad and use as a cool compress for the first few days of the infection, and a warm one for when the stye is no longer painful. Use as a compress for a few minutes a couple times a day. It’s really helped me out a few times.
Also, if you ever get swollen tonsils coming on, a way of soothing them and helping it go away faster is gargling with some camomile tea or just drinking it. So you can reuse a bag for that. It goes without saying that tonsillitis can be serious so you should consult a doctor for some antibiotics to treat the cause, but camomile is very good for treatment of the symptoms :)